Archive

theodp writes “As a young boy, Batman producer Michael Uslan — a self-described ‘ultimate comic book geek’ — was traumatized to see the Caped Crusader being ‘murdered’ in front of his very eyes by the camp 60′s TV series. ‘I was horrified,’ Uslan told a Harper College audience last week. ‘I was horrified because the whole world was laughing at Batman, and that just killed me.’ At that point, the 13-year-old vowed to teach the world about the Batman he knew, about the crusader who lurked in the shadows, about a darker, grittier superhero. As told in his memoir The Boy Who Loved Batman, he made good on that vow: Uslan has served as the executive producer of all Batman major motion pictures, from 1989′s Batman to the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises (trailer).”

eldavojohn writes “Vermont is the first state to ban fracking (hydraulic fracturing), a process that was to revolutionize the United States’ position into a major producer of natural gas. New York currently has a moratorium on fracking but it is not yet a statewide ban. Video of the signing indicates the concern over drinking water as the motivation for Vermont’s measures (PDF draft of legislation). Slashdot has frequently encountered news debating the safety of such practices.”

An anonymous reader writes “To pay his tribute to Steve Jobs, Joseph Tame, a media producer and a marathon runner from Tokyo, ran 21 kms in 2 hours — starting from the western side of the Imperial Palace, across to Roppongi, through Omotesando, then up to Shinjuku. The leaf is in Kagurazaka, and the start/finish point just by the entrance to Yasukuni Shrine. The route, when mapped, shows the famous Apple logo in the center of Tokyo.”

An anonymous reader writes “Top Gear’s producer Andy Wilman responds to Tesla’s lawsuit: ‘We never said that the Tesla’s true range is only 55 miles, as opposed to their own claim of 211, or that it had actually ran out of charge. In the film our actual words were: “We calculated that on our track it would run out after 55 miles.”‘ Interesting points, and as far as I can remember also correct. But I’m assuming Tesla is going the get the PR they want on this regardless of any court rulings.”

R.E.M.’s upcoming album Collapse Into Now is coming in March, but the band is already getting the buzz going with a little crowdsourcing experiment. A couple days ago, the album’s producer released some tracks from the song “It Happened Today” in files that can easily be imported into Garageband, the music mixing software that comes on new Macs. Fans are invited to remix the song and upload their new versions under Creative Commons license to SoundCloud.

The individual tracks were also released under Creative Commons license so that anyone can download and remix them as long as it is not for commercial use. Producer Jacknife Lee writes:

We ended up with over a hundred tracks with all the percussion, brass, three pianos, celeste, glockenspiels, vibraphone, eight acoustic guitars, two drum kits, bass synths, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer, electric guitars, bass and all the voices.

So far there are already 41 tracks. This one is the best so far, IMHO, and this one plays the vocals backwards.

eldavojohn writes “MSNBC spoke with the senior producer of a new stereoscopic 3D game called ‘Killzone 3′ and highlighted problems they are trying to solve with being one of the first FPS 3D games for the PS3. The team ran into serious design problems like where to put the cross hairs for the players (do they constantly hover in front of your vision?) and what to do with any of the heads up display components. Aside from the obvious marketing thrown in at the end of the article (in a very familiar way), there is an interesting point raised concerning normalized conventions in all video games and how one ports that to the new stereoscopic 3D model–the same way directors continue to grapple with getting 3D right. Will 3D games be just as gimmicky as most 3D movies? If they are, at least Guerrilla Games is at least making it possible for the player to easily and quickly switch in and out of stereoscopic 3-D while playing.”

eldavojohn writes “MSNBC spoke with the senior producer of a new stereoscopic 3D game called ‘Killzone 3′ and highlighted problems they are trying to solve with being one of the first FPS 3D games for the PS3. The team ran into serious design problems like where to put the cross hairs for the players (do they constantly hover in front of your vision?) and what to do with any of the heads up display components. Aside from the obvious marketing thrown in at the end of the article (in a very familiar way), there is an interesting point raised concerning normalized conventions in all video games and how one ports that to the new stereoscopic 3D model–the same way directors continue to grapple with getting 3D right. Will 3D games be just as gimmicky as most 3D movies? If they are, at least Guerrilla Games is at least making it possible for the player to easily and quickly switch in and out of stereoscopic 3-D while playing.”

An anonymous reader writes “Apparently, if you even have been *thinking* about bootlegging the Mile High Music Festival this coming weekend in Denver you’ve already been sued. No joke. Event producer AEG has already filed trademark infringement claims against 100 John Does and 100 Jane Does in anticipation that they’re going to bootleg the event. Since none of the sued parties have actually done anything yet, no one’s showing up in court to protest the lawsuit either, so it moves forward… meaning that AEG can use it to get all sorts of law enforcement officials (US Marshals, local and state police and even off-duty officers) to go seize bootleg material.”